August 15, 2012

inheritance, part 1

We dig through photographs and newspaper clippings and
scraps of yellowed paper. Everyone looks vaguely like someone else. This nose,
that hair. The front page of the newspaper one day in 1934, when Bonnie and
Clyde were killed—tucked into a Bible. I find myself a little in awe of the idea that 100 years ago,
none of these people could have imagined that their blood relatives would be
sitting in this living room, on their furniture, studying their faces and their
handwriting. 100 years from now, who knows who will be looking at our pictures
(there will be more to choose from) and wondering about our lives, of which most
of the minutae and details have been lost.